Hardest Naija Meals to make

Cooking is like bringing love and beauty to the world. The chef has ingredients playing their individual instruments in a gastronomic orchestra which has to be blended seamlessly into a homogenous entity. The audience come for love and beauty. Once that curtain is drawn and the burners come on, the clock starts ticking and the already great expectations go through the roof.

It is a big responsibility to satisfy the hungry with love and beauty served on a plate. Each comes with an appetite and some sense of entitlement. They might have paid some money or perhaps feel that family ties qualify them to be fed on demand.

Just like the great orchestra conductor’s work does not start at show time, the same applies to the chef. There are manuscripts to pore over, ancient recipes for success that have to be practiced over and over again. Instruments have to be in tune and played with fervour. The chef plans the meal, keeps a mental note of what elements are needed and goes to great trouble to assemble a great cast. Once the burners come on, it is a race against the clock. The meat would not be fresh forever and once in the hot water it has a narrow window of opportunity to transform from raw talent to finished article while at the same time being in rhythm with every other pot occupant that gets added at different stages of the performance. Movements of the hand come at strategic times in the process and the chef conducts alone.

 The Urhobos have a soup called Esha (Isha) cooked with a special Esha beans that needs six hours of cooking as a preliminary before the soup is cooked the next day. The most popular Urhobo soup is Owoevwri (Owo soup) which can be ready in ninety minutes. If Owo is a 100 meters sprint then Esha is an arduous marathon.

This no doubt is the hardest soup (Esha) to make in Urhobo land (Located in the Niger Delta) and was only eaten in my childhood at the Christmas and New Year seasons when there was time to prepare the ingredients and boil that beans that took forever to get cooked.

The preparation of Apku from the cassava stage is another lengthy process. There are some meal preparations that can best be described as aerobic workouts or hard labour. Long before the arrival of instant Pounded Yam powders (that contain rice, potatoes and starch with about only 60-70% yam) people actually pounded boiled yam in a mortar with a pestle. As a young lad it was not unusually to hear Lagos neighbours pounding away across the street. In a tropical country sweat flies everywhere at the hint of exertion and this was why we always heard the wives talk about all the sweat I have put into this marriage during all marital disputes.

The Naija kitchen can be a very hot and lonely place. It is predominantly inhabited by the ladies (or female domestic home helps). Some things make the meals very hard to conjure up and in retrospect it has nothing to do with the technicalities of the food making process. Below are a list of the hardest Naija meals to make.

Cooking meals with limited money

Once the next meal’s arrival is unsure, the meal at hand becomes hard to make. Positive people may say ‘eat today and sleep but let tomorrow take care of tomorrow’. One really needs a strong mind bursting with faith to cook the last food in the house, singing happily and knowing fully well that hunger like mosquitoes always come back. Mums may not announce to the family that she is serving the last supper to spare the kids of the burden of worry. Some kids might complain about what’s for supper during the cooking process. That is when sweat and tears mix on a sad face.

I don’t know where the next meal is coming from

Cooking for funerals

At a time when the bereaved should be comforted, they are busy cooking for the whole village in the name of doing a befitting burial. Men in black turn up looking a bit sad then give the bereaved a hug worth N1000 and proceed to drink beer and wine worth N3,000 and eat food worth N6,000. Why should someone who has just had the worst news of their lives be at the market buying dry fish and yams by the truck load? The ironic thing is if the food is very good, greedy relatives would start to ask if there was a Will and if their name was mentioned in it.

Cooking under these circumstances is tiring. People would gladly cook four times the amount of food and go days without sleep for a joyful occasion such as a wedding but Naija culture wants a carnival because someone had a stroke and died.

Cooking for a neurotic man

Some Naija men don’t eat soups that have been in the fridge. It has to be straight from the pot to the plate. This kind of men are not usually the indomie type. It has to be pounded yam and their favourite soup. You wonder what these men think refrigeration was invented for.  Talk about a hard knock life!

These crazy men also never cook.  It is almost as absurd as a guy saying he never watches highlights to his team’s Premiership matches on the television as his taste is live games. Then he asks someone else to buy his season ticket for home games and pay his transport costs and stadium entry fees for all away matches.

My village people will tell him that before you grow the teeth of a rabbit be prepared to grow the lip to cover it. New soup ko, new flame ni.

Cooking when pregnant

To bend down and open the oven can be problematic when you are carrying a large oven on your abdomen.

Cooking while lonely and depressed

The monotony of doing repetitive tasks that have been done so many times before such as peeling potatoes or slicing tomatoes means that one slips into automatic actions needing no thoughts as all actions are done instinctively. That is when the mind really travels. Regrets, sadness, guilt, people who are missed all come flooding into the mind. Tears flow while standing alone in a hot kitchen. No one but the chef knows how hard it was to get those plates of food infused with love and beauty to the table.

What Naijaz eat

‘Where shall we meet again? In the thunder lightening or in the rain?’ asked the British delegate as the diaries were brought out. The Naija contingent to the conference looked on with barely concealed disdain.

‘For what? You and who in lightening? Do I look like Shango’s girl friend? Please it is this same Buka, same time next week abeg’. The British murmured among themselves about how much ‘those Nigerians love their food’ on the flight back home and with good reason.

The 197 Million Nigerians featured on the Worldometer website must be eating a lot of things to have that ‘live’ number going up every 15 seconds. With about 250 tribes in Nigeria with each boasting of their own cuisine, there is such a wide variety of foods to go through and not every Tom, Dick and Garri can be mentioned.

Every area of Nigeria has staple foods. The staples can be divided roughly into the dough like meals (also called Swallows or Solids) that are eaten with soups and the ‘others’ rice, bread, beans, plantains and yams.

Beef, chicken and fish are quite popular. Game and snails are favoured by some but with the recent spate of Lassa fever infections (first described in Lassa Town, Nigeria in 1969 when the Virus killed two Missionary Nurses) the demand for ‘bush meat’ or ‘grass cutter’ is on the wane

The Swallows –

Cassava derived meals like Apku (Fermented Cassava), Starch, Lafun (Cassava flour), and Garri

Yam derived meals like Amala (Yam flour) and Pounded yam

Meals made from grains like Tuwo Dawa – Guinea corn flour, Tuwo Massara – Maize flour and Tuwo Shinkafa (boiled rice)

Durum wheat based pastes – Semovita and Semolina

Plantain derived meals – Plantain flour paste or ‘fufu’

Cocoyam meal- Ebiripo

The big combo – Pounded yam, Cocoyam and plantain all blended into one, (an Okrika/Ijaw Swallow)

The Soups-

Certain soups are well loved in different parts of the country. Pepper soups and the tomato stew cuts across most state boundaries and have become national dishes but most soups like languages tend to be concentrated in geo-nutritional zones.

The North

Miyan Kuka (Baobab leaves soup), Muyina Taushe (Pumpkin soup) Miyan Zogale (Zogale vegetable) and Miya Karkashi

Middle belt

Soya bean chicken soup

The West

Ewedu soup

Niger Delta (South south)

Owo soup and Banga Soup

South East

Ofe Nsala, Afang and Edikang Ikong soups

Due to the strong emotions that foods stir up due to their closeness to a peoples’ sense of identity, myths are bound to spring up around some certain foods which adds a degree of mystic to them.

Santana/ Apku/Loi-loi

This meal is made from fermented Cassava dough and has the power to make your visitors and neighbours ask if ‘una kill persin here as dead bodi dey smell?’ This Apku preparation is a bit like child birth. When the baby arrives, the joy takes over. This meal is eaten with a soup of choice and is famed to have Duracell battery like powers that makes the body work for twelve hours without a break and with no sign of fatigue; hence its popular name of six to six (6am-6pm staying power).

A favourite among Igbos in South Eastern Nigeria it sometimes plays second fiddle to Pounded yam which is made from the King of Crops; Yams.

Miyam Kuka

This soup is quite popular up North and best eaten with Tuwo. Made from the leaves of the most iconic tree on the planet, the Baobab tree also called the Tree of life, this is a meal that satisfies by reaching parts of the body and soul that other soups do not reach (allegedly).

The oldest trees in Africa are Baobab trees and that adds an esoteric property to the leaves.

Edikang Ikong

This soup that is cooked by the Efik and Ibibio peoples of the South Eastern part of Nigeria has an aura about it. People say that if a lady from that part of the country cooks this meal for a man, he loses his head and falls madly in love with her. It could just be that with so much variety in one pot a man is sure to have all his gastronomic desires met (my theory). The soup is more congested than a packed Molue and contains water leaves, goat meat , beef, dried fish, snail, stock  fish, cow skin, palm oil, periwinkles and crayfish. Enough to make the poor chap think, ‘I don’t get this at home, but why?’

Ukodo

At the risk of being labelled as biased I would simply say that Ukodo cooked by the right person in the right pot with the right yams and dried fish can reset your destiny. This meal is popular among the Urhobos of the South south.

Amala

For the Yorubas who inhabit the south western part of Nigeria, it might be safe to say that their world revolves around Amala. Made from Yam flour, it has the ability to make well- dressed people throw caution to the wind and risk stains on expensive fabric. And these are people dressed in white sometimes. Having observed from close quarters I am beginning to think that Amala and that Gbegiri soup has some mind altering capabilities. It gives the eater an Amala world view. Phrases like, best thing since sliced bread makes Amala aficionados laugh inwards. They know that Amala is the best thing since the records of the best things in Nigeria began and that Amala is the only Titan that exists on the plates of Nigeria. The Nass Native American tribe have a mythological giant called Amala who suspends the whole world on a stick. The day he tires and drops the stick, the world ends. For some in Nigeria, the world will surely end the day you tell them that the wooden spatula has refused to stir the yam flour anymore.

Miscellaneous

Jollof rice, moin mon, Ngwo ngwo (assorted meat in a soup), Isiewu (Goat head soup), Coconut rice, Achicha (Dried Cocoyam Pottage), Miya Kubewa and Gwaten Doya (Yam pottage) all keep the Nigerian stomachs happily engaged.

I must end with this; at every meal time an increasing number of Nigerians have been having a dish called no meal. This is due to poverty and things need to change. Apart from people who are fasting or trying to lose weight, everyone else has a fundamental human right to eat something at every meal time. Abi I lie?

Greatest Plate of my life

It is round and weighty. You place it in front of you. You take a deep breath. Step back a bit, and then you move forward with that look of determination in the eyes. That is how a penalty kick is taken. And that is how history is made. The same applies to food. There are some epic meals that have been set before me that cannot be forgotten and this is my trip down memory lane; recounting the greatest plates of my life.

You know what a great plate is. The ones that make you glad to be at the table even before you taste the food. You are inspired to float in a sea of gratitude for the meal that has been placed before you. Quite unlike those other plates that can be best described as a trial of your faith. You know the ones. Naija people would pray lengthy prayers imploring God to kill any bacteria on the plate and detoxify any poisons contained therein (both physical and spiritual) when the food does not look particularly well endowed with attractiveness.

Nay! Today we talk only about the sweet memories of when the tongue tasted morsels of heaven on earth.

Talking about the tongue, one must give it accolades. That is the only place where one can taste food. (Although greedy people seem to taste food with their hearts, eyes and noses). The sole provider of the pleasures derived from food is the tongue. It is also one of the few organs of pleasure that serves humans into old age. Eyes may need glasses and the ears may need hearing aids but the Naija tongue just keeps on licking that Ogbono forever. Well, after fifty years of age the taste buds start to become less effective but like we say in my village, when the multi-millionaire loses 20% of his income he is still very rich.

Two thirds of the tongue has those tantalising sensations transported to the brain via the Facial nerve and the back third goes via the Glossopharyngeal nerve. A bit like one man having calls coming through both his Glo and his MTN phones. The messages from the tongue all end up in the gustatory area of the brain and if the stimulation is intense enough, the memory is filed away permanently.

I think my earliest great plate was one of those breakfast bonanzas at Falolu Road. My dad has been to Leventis and returned with cartoons of food.

Fried sausages, eggs, bacon, bread and strawberry jam filled the table as did the Kellogg’s cornflakes and milk. We ate to bursting point and then ate some more. There were many breakfast tables like this but I recall one particular occasion when the planets were all in alignment and the food tasted divine. One swallowed with a sense of history, almost as if one was representing the country in the swallowing Olympics. It must have been in 1972, when most days were summer days. The sizzling sausages sent delicious an aroma all over the house. My young body began to act like a cat fish that had the capacity to taste the food all over my skin. Not sure I have eaten any breakfast like that ever since. Over the years I have had my first meals of the day on boats, planes trains and even while out running (about 17,000 breakfast meals) but nothing compares to that Falolu extravaganza.

The sweets soon came daily. Tom-Tom and Goody-Goody echoed in my pockets but no satisfaction. That was till I was invited to a particular four to six. Those were the evening birthday parties where one donned the Sunday best for a weekday party. I remember vividly wearing my flared trousers and brand new shoes and taking my seat on that collapsible wooden chair everyone in Suru-Lere seemed to hire for parties. My food came on a paper plate and it was jollof rice, moin moin, cubes of hard dodo and stewed beef. I looked down and kept on eating without a care in the world. That discovery of the pure white flesh of a boiled egg in my moin moin was a delightful encounter. The beef was both chewy and tasty but I had a full set of teeth back then in 1974 and so could chew myself into a labyrinth of happiness and subsequently chew my way back out. Those were the days when a piece of meat that felt too big for its boots was converted into chewing gum (via persistent mastication) and swallowed two hours later.

My first buka experience was with a neighbour’s driver. He had dropped the kids at school and was giving me a lift to my bus stop but we got side tracked by hunger. It was somewhere in Yaba close to Herbert Macaulay Way. The place was full of men who had left home too early to eat. The menu was set. Steaming rice, boiled blacked eye beans and dodo that was fried incompletely. The stew and meat could raise the death in the local Atan Cemetery if the wind took the aroma that far. I always had breakfast before leaving home and my dad was particularly against ‘eating outside’ so this buka trip was a crime which added to the excitement. Naturally the stew differed from what you got at home. Generally speaking Naija women hardly changed how they make their food, so you get accustomed to home food. A Naija friend once said he could identify his wife’s soup out of an identity parade of ten dishes. In addition he could tell her state of mind at the time of cooking!

When you are used to the same soup every night, that vagabond tongue rejoices at the novelty of new sensations.

It was almost a matter of time before the inevitable happened. 1977 on a Sunday morning there was the Ukodo to remember. It was a family meal just before we left for church. Hot and straight to the point. Yams, dry fish, pepper soup with that unsung hero, bright red palm oil. It was a meal fit for a king

But here is a thought. What if my greatest plate is yet to come? What if it is more important to do all I can to make my daily bread my best meal ever? Isn’t the greatest plate the next one you are alive to sit in front of and eat?

That’s the way rice goes

That phrase: point and kill, says it all. The death of a plant or animal comes before a meal. Next the preparation, the cooking and finally the eating happens. A lot of activity goes on before the spoon arrives at the opening of the mouth. Just as people vary in social status, so does the pre-mastication routine. Even the plates and utensils for eating come in grades. But once that spoon goes between the teeth, the digestion process shows itself to be fully democratised; that is just the way rice goes.

It is the same process for all once that alimentary mechanism kicks in.

For the uninitiated, point and kill refers to the make shift aquarium usually situated in the corner of an eating house where the customers drift to and  choose the fish they want by pointing that index finger of death. The fish is then prepared and served up for the paying guest. It does not come fresher than this.

That Jollof rice, Moin moin and flesh fish are on a continuous journey called - The journey of life. It is a shame that many Naijaz have been sat before plates for decades and still don’t know what happens to the Jollof once they have buried it in their mouths. Hopefully this article wih shed some light.

For starters the teeth are not just for smiling on Instagram upandan. Biting, chewing and the production of saliva all happen in the mouth. This converts food of various sizes and textures into a bolus that can finally be swallowed down the oesophagus (gullet).

The back of the throat is such a wonderful place; a point of no return. There lies the junction where the road forks into two with on going down the wind pipe for breathing and the other one going straight to the stomach. Let’s just say that the wind pipe leading to the lungs has a two way traffic rule but transmits just air while the gullet is a one way one lane express way. (Shayo Masters might disagree). The gullet admits numerous things but just one grain of rice down the wind pipe leads to choking. Naijaz may disobey traffic laws but they would never drive their pounded yams down the wind pipe (Na who wan die?)

Before the spoon actually gets to the mouth, the cooking process produces aromas that stimulate salivation. By the time the spoon arrives, the lubrication for swallowing is abundantly present.

It’s the fish on the flame

Can’t you smell the aroma

That’s the point and the kill

I’m drowning in saliva

Saliva is not just water however. It contains salivary amylase which breaks down some of the starch in food hence the observation those some people who chew long enough start to experience; the food getting sweeter the more they chew. Unfortunately these are the ones who chew forever and still insist on arguing over Naija politics with food in their mouth. (Nothing is uglier than masticated food in the mouth of anyone save your own children).

Once into the stomach, that great big washing machine churns everything around for hours. A plate of food usually consists of Carbohydrates (Jollof), Protein (Fish), Fat (oil) Vitamins and mineral salts. (Depending on which African films are watched you might want to add Love Portions or poisons to this list

. While the mineral salts and Vitamins need no digestion, everything else gets broken down.

This breakdown process is not different from Nigeria’s crude oil being broken down to petrol, diesel, kerosene, petroleum jelly and many other wonderful substances able to make people rich.

The stomach produces acid and pepsin which breaks down protein. As the churned food moves into the duodenum and a message is sent to the Gall bladder which contracts and sends  in the bile required to emulsify the fat (which was added to the Jollof). That same message gets to the Pancreas that lies behind the stomach and it sends its own contribution to the chemical reaction namely trypsinogen for the breakdown of protein (fish), lipase for the breakdown of oil aided by the Bile salts and pancreatic amylase for the carbohydrate (Jollof). As the food is transported along the small intestine it gets mixed well with the enzymes ensure the chemical reaction continues. The end products of digestion begin to get absorbed through the gut wall.

The gut is one long tube or perhaps one long bus route in Lagos. The Conductor announces the various bus stops and no passenger leaves. Only (chemical passengers) enzymes enter and start to ruffle up the exiting passengers all the way to the final bus stop. (Toilet!!! And everybody shouts, Owa!!!)

The small intestine is a long journey of winding narrow roads without street lights. The further along the journey, the more area boys begin to show up (Bacteria) and they are not without their usefulness.

Soon the food becomes completely unrecognisable as it approaches that junction that marks the beginnings of the large bowel; the ileocaecal valve. From here onwards the water is sucked right out of the food which can now be called stool. Traffic is slow for maximum extraction of every last drop of moisture from the stool. Like cars stuck in traffic, the life is slowly drained out of the passengers and that strong smell of fumes become suffocating.

Round the bends they drive till it all comes to the great hold up at the rectum. The horns blare loudly singing with a tone that cannot be ignored, ‘give me a chance, I want to come through’.

This call of nature is usually obeyed promptly.

So what is the point of all the drama with point and kill fish, Jollof rice, moin moin and dodo? Why should there be a long food preparation process? Why can’t we just have taps that flow with protein shakes, Carbohydrate fluids and fat juices? The acquisition of raw food materials followed by cooking in a hot kitchen seems like too much work.

Personally if given the choice between a drink of tasteless amino acids or a chicken roasting in the oven and filling the house with that aroma that gives the stomach hope of good things coming, I will choose the latter. The sitting around the table and going through the act of eating is a great social event. Most great partnerships usually start with that first tentative meal together. Breaking bread, breaking ice and then feeling your way through is how business is done. The journey is just as exciting as arriving at the destination.

Life is about the process. Breaking complex things down and then reassembling them up again. Ultimately the body works on fuel and it is nice that this fuel comes into our fuel tanks through pleasurable means unlike those poor cars at petrol stations get lifeless fuel pumps stuck into them while they stand looking totally bored.

Plate Envy

The love for another man’s food is a special kind of greed. You see it in parties when people are in queues and the lady holding the spoon smiles affectionately at a guy holding a plate and piles a lot of jollof rice on his plate smiling. The smile evaporates when the next ‘unknown’ guy holds his plate out. She plays golf with the rice in a back and forth motion, then turns pit digger thrusting the spoon deep into the rice holding the hungry man’s heart in her spoon. She then shakes the spoon and converts the mountain to a plain and puts the tiny portion on the plate. The man asks for more and she gives him that look then dives in the rice while maintaining her eye contact with him in that glance only Nigerian men understand.

You no get wife for house wey go cook for you? Her eyes say

She gives the second spoon and looks at the next man indicating time is up. This is when the poor guy looks at his plate and looks at the plate of the man going in front of him and the envious feelings well up.

It is the same in the Bukas where the definition of one spoon of rice is interpreted by the hands of the one who holds the spoon. This subjective weighing of food is not fair and some guys, the fine boys, the big boys and the charismatic boys might as well say, na dem dey rush us for they get back to back lion shares of all food items.

In Nigerian weddings everyone looks at the plate of his neighbours as he or she walks back to their seat. This breeds envy that gets compounded when the souvenir lady walks around with that who-know-man App in her eyes and serves the gift items according to Aso Ebi status or according to how much she likes your face. Human beings don’t like the fact that some people seem to get more than others in all aspects of life.

One guy a few years ago visited his brother’s house at meal time (what a coincidence) and naturally was invited for lunch. He was later to lament that ‘our wife’ gave her mother who  was also visiting at the time four large pieces of meat and he was given two pieces of meat with some miserable four shrimps that looked like they had been deported from Europe (Not imported o). He actually was counting pieces of meat on someone else’s plate.  His conclusion was that ‘this wife dey chop all my brother money’. I felt like giving him that look: You no get wife for house wey go cook for you? but I was young and feared for my life. A man over forty that is involved in a meat census on someone else’s plate in someone else’s house is capable of murder.

It is a fact of life that some people will be getting bigger than others. While it is understandable that a man who lives in an airless oven might notice the difference when he visits the air conditioned residence of his fellow man, it is reasonable to expect that he should be happy that only one of them has to live in an oven. And when that same man walks past the family dog and sees a fat piece of chicken that he would rather have, it is not the dog’s fault. Plates of food look good on Instagram but that does not mean it tastes better than what anyone has in their homes. True, the salad is always greener on social media and there is an allure for that plate that is beyond reach, however it might be full of salt, cold and badly cooked.

Those in films seem to eat and tell the best jokes and seem happier than real life dinner tables. Well the jokes are scripted and these are actors pretending to love each other. The ice in the drinks are plastic cubes that wouldn’t melt under the hot lights as the directors asks them to repeat the scene on end.

Nothing is sweeter that that food you did not cook. You just turn up, take a seat with the speed of a horse, smell that wonderful aroma and salivate like a pig and then start eating like a horse. At the end you leave without clearing the table or washing the dishes. I guess that is why restaurants were invented. The problem is when someone else’s personal home is treated like a restaurant especially when they are great cooks.

Some visitors time their visits to perfection causing the sages of old to invent that greeting that is usually accompanied with a hypocritical smile, ‘you meet me well my brother, wash hand’.

It is only well for the visitor for the plate owner had planned to eat in peace listening to Celestine Ukwu and reserving that roast fish for the end of the meal. Now the fish has to be offered up as sacrifice on the altar of hospitality. He prays a bone chokes the visitor as he smiles and passes 60% of his fish to him.

When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee:

² And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite.

³ Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat.

There is no better plate than the one in front of man. That is the meal to be grateful for. Imagine those who were envious of the affluent families living large in Manhattan in 1903. These rich folk had a cook called Mary Mallon otherwise known as Typhoid Mary. She cooked well but added Typhoid causing germs to each plate for she carried the germs in her body. Many took ill and three died during the course of her career.

Awoof dey run purge (Other people’s delicacies are liable to provoke gastrointestinal maladies).

When it came to big hype about food, none could rival the Titanic. Those with great talents in lusting for food they could never afford had in the description of the Titanic’s culinary arrangements a real life fantasy. First class passengers were practically in heaven and they had the best utensils and wines. Over thirty chefs worked hard to produce the best food on a floating vessel since Noah fed his animals in the Ark.

This floating wonder left Southampton on the tenth of April 1912 amidst fanfare but in the end all the plate envy turned out to be a vanity.

Luther Vandross put it so well when he sang about love and it works well with food: If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you are with.

MamaPut & PapaTake

It is just like walking around town with two fridges on the chest. Nursing mothers multi-task doing both the production and storage of the milk behind closed brassieres while still being on stand- by to feed the hungry at the hint of a cry. Sonny Okosun in his politically charged song Papa’s Land asked, we wanna know who owns the land, Papa’s land. He was agitating against the Apartheid system that had Black Sons of the soil in South Africa receive second class status despite being original inhabitants of the African land. It was this patch of soil he referred to as Papa’s Land. It was true that the Papa’s grabbed plots here and there but when hunger strikes it is Mama Africa that feeds the continent.

Women worldwide serve more plates to the hungry than men. In Nigeria the men eat more than they cook except for Suya and Mai Shai (breakfast buka) which is always managed by men. Women preparing and selling Suya by the road side is as rare as a Buka where the cooking is done predominantly by men. I wouldn’t eat in any of these kind of rare establishments if I happened to come across them for I would be too busy fainting.

Men grab most of the lucrative Television Chef Contracts and star in the State Houses, Palaces and top restaurants of the world but the MamaPuts feed the nations in all the continents. While Nigerians call MamaPut the local low cost restaurants that feed the masses; today I define MamaPut as all the women who put food into the hungry mouths of the world.

I have long forgotten most of the people I met while in University but I still recall the local MamaPut who I have renamed Mama Pharaoh. I wrote about her in draft of my novel Blind Procedure (which is still being written since 2005!).

Mama Pharaoh

On this campus none important

Like the madam who feeds us all

For though the theories sound so brilliant

Can’t satisfy when man must wak

I am here for major academics

And eba-ogbono tongue gymnastics

If I ever gra-du-ate

Please post me soups in big plastics

After youth corps comes a job

House and car and then I will marry

All I want is just one thing

Babe must cook like Mama Pharaoh

It looks like Mama Africa gave the continent every chance of prospering. The fertile soil and abundant fresh water supply means seeds thrown out of the window just grow. In addition there are women everywhere even more fertile than the soil. It is almost like some ladies who get pregnant if their man looks at them longer than two minutes straight. These ladies are every ready to put food in the mouths of Africans but they lack power to ensure that food production is adequate. Many women are involved in African agriculture but the policy makers tend to be dominated by the Papas. The land ownership, the fertilisers and the pesticides are in male control and mismanagement is a major problem. The Papas love to dip their hands in the till.

The poverty that makes people have no funds to buy food is imposed on Africa by the Papas who do not make the right moves to grow the economy. The MamaPuts have their hands handcuffed behind their backs yet they are the ones that can feed Africa.

An ever so kind Mama Africa studded the soil with Gold and Diamonds. These were solely to feed the people. The Papas had other plans. They mined and they took, along with their foreign partners. In some areas, Mama Africa was stabbed through the belly till she bled Crude Oil to be shipped out to foreign refineries. The cash generated stays in the hands of the Papas who take.

The land grabbing and cash grabbing is an ironic habit. No matter how much is accumulated, everyone dies and leaves it behind. The poor ones who starve despite the potential to produce ample food amounts of food die. The frustrated MamaPuts who could not fulfil their purpose in full also die knowing they could have put more food in hungry mouths. The greedy Papas die and all they get is gold plated coffins and a befitting burial and the food they refused to give Africans in life is eaten off their bodies by the African earth worms six feet under.

When simple things are not done, Warri go say, ‘no be ordinary eye’. Ordinary eyes would see the obvious and take action according to what is seen. Blind eyes on the other hand look at things but are unable to make simple conclusions.

It is a curse really for someone in a position of power to embezzle money that could be used to ensure good harvest yields and lower food prices. The blindness looks even more bizarre when the white collared crook buys a limousine and drives through town and the very starving people who he has defrauded sing his praises. The same applied to electricity which has everything to do with the availability of food for the MamaPuts. Many times African countries cannot store farm produce for lack of refrigeration. AC currents were invented by Nikola Tesla in 1888 and before that Refrigeration using vapours to lower temperatures was invented in 1805 by Oliver Evans. One would have thought that by now every farm, factory and house in Africa would have electricity and contain fridges for food storage. That is still not the case. There is a short term gain in stealing the money that fuels development. The Papas buy flash clothes and houses shining like a solitary torch light in the heart of darkness. It is a bit like taking a pistol and shooting all competitors at the start of a race on the right foot and then racing on to victory.

Only psychopaths enjoy that kind of victory which comes at the great expense of others. Welcome to the crazy world of Africa leaders (PapaTakes) who wrestle out starvation from the jaws of abundance.

Sausage Roll

Come and buy my Gala

A lovely sausage roll

Time overtook the sell by date

Fourteen long days ago

I don’t know what it tastes like

I guess I’m just too poor

I have a tray and no school bag

I am always on the streets

Run after the nice cars

And hope they will wind down

Slow traffic’s good for business

Will soon sell all my wares

We pray it’s never raining

And we don’t  run out of change

 to give the lovely customers

As we pursue their cars

Dr W Orhiunu

 Babawilly

My Time

June 2005